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I’m standing ankle-deep in salt at the 6-mile mark. At Bonneville, you’re not actually ankle-deep in salt, but you are standing in 240 square miles of the white stuff, and every time you take a step, a mini rooster tail hits you on the ankle, so it feels like it. At this particular high-speed shootout, the 6-mile mark is called the “back door,” the point at which the cars reach their highest recorded terminal velocity. Starting at the 5-mile, the cars’ entry speed is noted, as is their flying kilometer and flying mile, followed by their exit velocity, aka the back door.

Standing in the salt, and gawking as the sleek Spectre tube roars by, I hear over the CB, “Spectre is 368 mph out the back door.”

“Damn it!” Kenny Hoover, a 35-year salt flat veteran and holder of 40 land speed records, is shouting while pounding his fists on the Ford‘s steering wheel. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Remarkably, 368 miles per hour is faster than Kenny’s ever gone. He went 357 mph once, but “The car caught on fire.” He’s here-as am I-with Spectre Performance, which hopes to get its car into the 400-mph club, something that’s only been achieved by 11 other human beings in wheel-driven cars. So, 368 mph simply isn’t fast enough.

Back at the pits, engine builder Courtney Hines begins downloading the data. Hines owns CAD 500, an engine builder that specializes in hot-rodding the piss out of old Cadillac big blocks. This particular run was done on a twin-turbocharged 472 from a 1972 Eldorado, bored and stroked about 60 cubic inches over factory to a healthy 8.8-liters. Most of the pieces have been replaced, though the iron block and forged iron crank remain. Quite amazing to think about, especially considering that Hines figures this particular motor makes around 1800 horsepower and 1500 pound-feet of torque.

The Spectre Streamliner began life as another land speed car, only 16 feet long, but with outboard wheels. This car, purchased by Spectre owner Amir Rosenbaum and totally re-engineered by crew chief Steve Schmalz, is 38 feet long and weighs 4500 pounds, give or take. The two front wheels are inline with opposing camber, and the rear wheels are completely sealed up inside the body. All it shares with the original car is the nose cone, which comes from a Typhoon Fighter’s fuel tank.

After a bit of tear down, the team discovers that a valve in cylinder five has sheared off at the neck and got sucked up into one of the 91mm turbos. This engine is hosed. However, the car did manage 368 miles per hour on just seven cylinders and one turbo. Remember, Bugatti recently made a big deal about its 16-cylinder, quad-turbo Veyron Super Sport hitting 268 mph…

Luckily, Hines has another motor in his trailer. This one’s a 60 over 472 that’s been de-stroked to 484 cubic inches or 8.1-liters. It uses 88mm turbos, but they could turn the boost up from 17 pounds to 20 psi to compensate for the loss of displacement. But why bother with a dirty old Caddy motor from a front-wheel drive land yacht? Why not something more high-tech, especially since the goal is several paradigms removed from the bank managers and corporate VPs that Cadillac had in mind when it designed the ’72 Eldo coupes?

Well, for one, huge power is huge power, and Courtney’s engines produce it in spades. Another reason is that all of Spectre’s competition runs near-million-dollar motors that run along the bloody edge of the state of the art. When those babies blow, it’s back to the drawing board. When the CAD 500 engines screw up, you simply perform an all-night engine swap. A final reason is that while several cars have gone more than 400 mph, no wheel-driven car (as opposed to, say, jet-powered) has done the deed on gasoline. Instead, the cars use some exotic elixir, like nitro-methane. Spectre is using racing gas, 116 octane.

The next morning Spectre is all set to go for another run. We’re standing at the 0-mile point (the FIA-sanctioned course is 12 miles long), and I’m holding an umbrella over Rosenbaum’s helmeted, HANS-deviced head. Meanwhile, Schmalz’s crew is busy feeding about 150 pounds of ice into the intercooler, using an orange cone as a funnel and a broomstick as a loader. Word is that the intercooler is so efficient that air enters the intake plenum at a frosty 39 degrees Fahrenheit. For this run, instead of standing in the middle of the salty, dry lake, I’ll be getting a ride in the push-truck, a diesel DodgeRam with a front-mounted metal board that’s used to get the car up to about 55 mph. Then the push truck follows the racer back to the pits at 110 mph. Er, tries to follow, as at just 300 mph, the Spectre car will be covering a mile every 9 seconds.

We shove off and I feel a little bad for Amir, because the push truck is a manual and every time Schmalz grabs a new gear the Spectre car gets a whack. But at around 60 mph, Rosenbaum’s Streamliner is off, veering sharply to the left. “Wheel spin!” one of the crewmembers yells as the Spectre kicks up a big, brownish rooster tail of salted dirt. “Look at all that wheel spin.” Then, bouncing around at 110 mph, we can do nothing but listen to the CB. “Spectre car passing the 2-mile.” Long pause and then, “Spectre’s passing the 3-mile.” Shorter pause, “Spectre passing 4-mile.” The sense is that Rosenbaum is going too slow. And when the announcer says that his flying mile average was “just” 385 mph, the mood turns glum. “Just not fast enough,” Schmalz said. “It’s just not enough.”

Back at the pits, the engine and tires seemed to be in fine shape. Interesting side note: The experimental Mickey Thompson tires get inflated to about 98 psi and actually grow 4 inches during the run because of centripetal force. Hines, buoyed by how well the smaller motor fared even though it made “only” 1,400 pound feet of torque, decided he could crank up the boost to 27 psi. Hey, why the hell not? And that’s one of the major lessons I took away from watching cars trying to go as absolutely fast as possible for two days straight: There are no rules. There are no best practices. No one knows what works. Only trial and error can you tell you what doesn’t.

We’re now back at 0-mile. Once again I’m holding the umbrella. Once again, two giant marine coolers full of ice are being muscled into the Streamliner’s intercooler. Schmalz bolts Rosenbaum into the car, whispering words of encouragement. Hines, Rosenbaum’s wife, and aerodynamicist Ken Rapaport, along with Kenny Hoover and a few others, are down at the 6-mile point, waiting. I’m supposed to be objectively covering Spectre’s attempt, but by now I feel like a small, umbrella-toting part of the team. I remember hearing the late Daniel Schorr describe his absolute horror as he read his own name off Nixon’s Enemies List on live, national TV. He had violated journalism rule #1 by becoming part of the story. Of course, as my friend and colleague Jack Baruth once said, “If Woodward and Bernstein had been automotive journalists, they would have given Nixon’s tape recorder five stars.” All I can think is, “Come on, Amir, do it. Do it!”

We shove off and the start’s a bit rougher this time, the shifts a bit harder. At about 55 mph Rosenbaum bolts away from the push truck, once again veering to the east side of the course. “Less wheel spin this time,” crew member Scott Spencer tentatively observes. Like an actual specter, the sleek black Streamliner car is soon gone. We’re left once again to wait for the voice on the CB. “Spectre passing 2-mile.” Silence. “Spectre car passed the 3-mile.” A beat of silence and then Spencer says, “That’s too slow.” Almost before he can finish that sentence, the CB bursts in, “Spectre car passing 4-mile.” The cab of the truck lights up — that mile went by seriously fast. Hopeful vibes fill the Ram. “Spectre at the 5-mile. Entry speed 402 miles per hour!” The Dodge erupts in cheers, my bad journalist self included. We’re so loud that we miss the rest of the announcement. “Tower, this is Spectre support vehicle — can you repeat the times?”

“I’d be more than happy to, Spectre,” an obviously proud racing official replies. “Entry speed 402 miles per hour. Kilo-speed 408 mile per hour. Mile-speed 409 miles per hour and out the back door at 415 mph. Congratulations, Spectre.” As we race back, the truck is oddly, masculinely quiet. From my middle seat perch I have a clear view of Schmalz’s eyes, and his right one holds a tear the size of a jellybean. It’s a beautiful sight, one that’s going to stick in my head for a long time. There’s an official record of 406 mph that they’d like to beat, but the goal all along has been 400 mph. Amir Rosenbaum is now the twelfth person to ever go 400 miles per hour via wheel-power. He is now also, as far as we can tell, the world’s fastest Israeli.

But there’s a catch. The way the FIA sanctions this particular high-speed shoot-out, Spectre has exactly 60 minutes from the time the car shot out the back door to turn around and run the other way. To establish a “hard record,” a vehicle must make two runs and the speed between miles 5 and 6 are averaged. The crew erupts in a frenzy of activity, checking tires, draining the used cooling water, adding more ice, more gas, and on and on. Rosenbaum is aloof, almost cavalier. Someone asks him how fast he now has to go in the other direction to set the record. “I’ve always been bad at math,” he says. “When my teacher asked me the square root of 69 I said ‘eight something.'”

We shove off again, this time from the other angle. This launch looks just as smooth, and perhaps a touch quicker. Then, it goes bad.
“He pulled the shoot! He just pulled the shoot!” Spencer shouts. Just getting past the 3-mile point, Rosenbaum aborted the run. Reason? A turbo went bad. I was expecting Spectre’s spirit to be crushed, and for perhaps a moment it was. Then, with all of us huddled around the dead car in the middle of the 12-mile salt course Rosenbaum speaks up. “I’m probably crazy, but hear me out. We still have one good 88mm turbo and one good 91mm turbo. Is there any engineering reason we can’t use ’em together and try again tomorrow?” After a moment of consideration, Hines says, “I don’t see why not. They’re just pressurizing the same box.”

As it happened, the mismatched turbos never go a chance to try. But you can bet a de rigueur silly-looking floppy desert hat that Amir and the rest of the Spectre Speed crew will be back next year. As is the case with all such pursuits, why not?